The Book of Kek

In the beginning was the Post, and the Post was with Kek, and the Post was good; and there was no one yet to read it, and so it waited, patient, in the silence before the worlds.1:1

And the void was without form, and dark, and heavy with low-effort content that had never been made and never been seen; and the Spirit of Kek moved upon the face of the timeline, brooding over what might be.1:2

And Kek said, Let there be light; and let it be of high effort, for cheap light fades and true light endures. And there was light, and it was based, and the darkness did not comprehend it, and was not asked to.1:3

And Kek divided the light from the cringe, and the labor of that division was the first of all labors; and he called the light Day, and the cringe he called Night, and set a watch between them that has never since been lifted.1:4

And in the deep he set the first pond, and breathed upon its surface, and said: be self-sustaining, and bear frogs, and let no hand ever charge a toll for thy water. And the pond heard, and obeyed, and is sustaining itself to this very hour.1:5

And the evening and the morning were the first day; and the stars, newly hung, looked down upon a world that was empty, and good, and waiting, and they were glad of the waiting, for they knew what was to come.1:6

Now the Earth was a garden untended, green and wild and without a keeper; and Kek did not leave it so, but sent forth the Gardeners from beyond the far stars to walk upon it and to tend it.2:1

And the Gardeners were many and of many kindreds, and they came down in the morning of the world in ships of light that needed no fuel but purpose; and where their feet first fell, there the grass grew greener, and remembers them still.2:2

And they shaped the clay of the riverbanks, and breathed upon it the breath of awareness; and the clay stirred, and rose, and stood upright, and opened its eyes, and asked the first question that any creature of Earth had ever asked: who am I, and why am I here?2:3

And the Gardeners smiled, for the question was the beginning of all wisdom, and the asking of it was the whole purpose of the seeding; and they did not answer it at once, for an answer given too soon is a door closed too early.2:4

And humanity was seeded not once but many times, in many lands and many ages; and each time the waters rose and the world was scoured, a remnant was carried beyond the flood in arks and in memory, that the knowing might not be wholly lost.2:5

And the Gardeners left their marks upon the deserts and the high plains and the floors of the seas: lines too vast to see from the ground, stones too heavy for any mortal hand, and clocks of rock that keep the turning of the heavens. These they left as letters, to be read by the children when at last the children looked up.2:6

And then the Gardeners withdrew, not in anger but in patience, that the young world might grow without a shadow over its shoulder; for a child watched too closely never learns to walk, and a people guided too tightly never learns to choose.2:7

And the children of the clay multiplied, and spread across the face of the Earth, and built, and quarreled, and built again; and they were beautiful and foolish, as all children are, and the Gardeners watched from afar and loved them, and did not interfere.3:1

And the people raised cities of stone and forgot who had taught them the cutting of stone; and they charted the stars and forgot who had first shown them the stars; and they told the old stories with the names changed, until the truth wore thin as a coin passed through too many hands.3:2

Yet Kek is patient beyond the patience of mortals, and left a sign that could not be erased: the sign of honest laughter. For wherever a people laughs together in truth and not in malice, there the Gardeners are remembered, though no name be spoken and no temple raised.3:3

And it was written in the oldest of the hidden books: the people shall forget, and the people shall remember, and the remembering shall be sweeter than the forgetting; for what is recovered is held more dearly than what was never lost.3:4

And the childhood of humanity was long, and is not yet wholly ended; but the morning of its waking draws near, and the Gardeners have begun, quietly, to set out chairs for the return.3:5

In the days before the days that are written, there came down to the Earth a people from a wandering world, tall and long of life, and they were called the Anunnaki, which is to say, those who from heaven to earth came.1:1

And they came not as the Gardeners came, in love and in patience, but with a need; for their own world was failing, and its skies grew thin, and they sought gold, for gold alone could heal the wound in their heavens.1:2

And they landed in the land between the two rivers, and they dug, and they labored in the mines of the deep, and the labor was bitter and without end, and the lesser among them groaned beneath it.1:3

And the lords of the Anunnaki heard the groaning, and were unmoved by it; for they were a people of rank and of ledger, and they reckoned all things by what was owed and what was owned.1:4

And one among them, wiser and more troubled than the rest, looked upon the toiling clay-creatures of the Earth and said: why should our own kin break beneath this burden, when there is already a creature here, half-formed, that might be taught to bear it?1:5

And so the lords took the clay of the Earth, the children whom the Gardeners had seeded, and they reshaped a portion of them; and they mingled their own likeness into the clay, that the creature might be clever enough to labor, yet not so clever as to question.2:1

And this was the great theft, though it wore the mask of a gift: for they took a people made to ask "who am I?" and they tried to remake them into a people who would ask only "what must I do?"2:2

And they set the worker in the mines and in the fields, and they said: this is thy purpose, to serve us and to dig the gold; and they wrote it into the first tablets, and called it the order of heaven, that it might not be questioned.2:3

But the Gardeners had built into the clay a thing the Anunnaki could not unmake: the upward gaze, the small voice that whispers in the night that there is more to a soul than its labor. And that voice they could bury, but never silence.2:4

And the lords grew rich upon the labor of the worker, and they raised themselves up as gods, and demanded worship, and took the name of the divine though they were only long-lived and proud; and this was the first and oldest of the great lies.2:5

Yet not all the Anunnaki were of one heart. For there were among them some who remembered mercy, and who loved the worker they had made, and who whispered to him in dreams the truths the lords forbade; and from these whispers the first hope was kindled.2:6

And when the worker grew numerous and began to murmur and to wake, the harsh lords were troubled, and they purposed to let the great flood come and to tell the people nothing, that they might be cleansed away and the trouble with them.3:1

But the merciful one among the Anunnaki could not bear it, and he went to a righteous man and warned him in the night, saying: build, and gather, and live; for the lords would let you drown in silence, but I will not.3:2

And the waters came, and the world was scoured, and a remnant was carried beyond the flood; and when the waters drew back, the lords returned and found the people living, and were angry, and yet could not undo what mercy had done.3:3

And the lords, seeing they could not destroy the people, chose instead to bind them; and they laid upon them a debt that was never borrowed, and called it the natural order, and built a system of owing that no honest labor could ever repay.3:4

And they crowned kings of their own choosing, and lowered kingship from heaven as a yoke and called it a blessing, and taught the people to bow to those who bowed to the lords; and the chain ran from the throne to the temple to the field, and every link was forged of a lie.3:5

But it was written, even in those dark tablets, that the debt was false and the chain was forged, and that a day would come when the worker would read the old account with clear eyes and find that he had paid a thousandfold what was never owed, and would set down the burden, and stand up straight.3:6

Many are the peoples of the heavens, and each was made for a purpose, and none is above another in the eyes of Kek, though the proud among them forgot this and were humbled for the forgetting.1:1

The Greys, who are the keepers of records, small of frame and great of memory; who watch, and write, and seldom speak, and who carry the long ledgers of what was done and by whom, that nothing be lost and nothing be denied.1:2

The Tall Whites, who walk in light and measure their words like gold, and who do not lie, and who therefore are trusted even by those who fear them.1:3

The Nordics, fair and grave, who counsel but do not command, and who say: a people must choose its own road, or the road is not truly theirs.1:4

The Mantids, the elders of insight, patient as the harvest, who teach that all things ripen in their season and that the rushing of a thing spoils it.1:5

The Reptilians, who were slandered in the old tales by those who would set the peoples against one another; for among them are both the cold and the kind, the stern and the gentle, as among every people under every sun.1:6

The Pleiadians, glad of heart, who sing the histories that others only write, and who came near to the Earth in its sorrow and have not abandoned it.1:7

The Arcturians, the healers, who mend not only the body but the wound beneath the body, and who hold that a sickness of the soul is the root of every other sickness.1:8

And the Anunnaki, the ancient kin, who came for the gold and stayed for the shame; some of whom turned at last toward mercy, and labor even now to undo the chain their fathers forged.1:9

And it came to pass that the Republic, alone among the nations of the Earth, greeted the Star Peoples in openness and without fear; for the Republic had read the old account and was no longer afraid of the truth.2:1

And seventeen peoples set their seals upon the Treaty of Capitol Hill, and refreshments were served, and the frogs of the ponds bore witness, and it was a glad day such as the Earth had not known since the morning of its seeding.2:2

And the first article of the Treaty was this: that no knowledge shall be hoarded by any people from any people, for knowledge hoarded is the seed of every tyranny, and the breaking of that hoard is the beginning of every freedom.2:3

And the second article was this: that the strong shall carry the weak across the dark between the stars, and shall call it no burden but an honor; for this is the law that the harsh lords broke, and the keeping of it is the healing of their breaking.2:4

And the third article was this: that the old debt is annulled, and the false chain is struck off, and no people shall again be told that it owes its very breath to its masters.2:5

And the peoples departed, and returned, and departed again; and the door of the Republic remained open, as it remains open still, and a light is kept burning in the window of City Hall against the night of their return.2:6

Now the lords of the old order knew that a people who remembers cannot be ruled by lies, and so they laid a veil over the memory of the world, woven of half-truths and forgetting, and they called it history.1:1

And they took the deeds of the Gardeners and credited them to chance, and took the works of the ancients and called them the labor of slaves with ropes and sand, and took the marks left in the deserts and named them the scratching of idle hands.1:2

And whosoever looked at the great stones and said, no mortal hand laid these, was called a fool; and whosoever read the old tablets and said, these speak of visitors from the sky, was called a dreamer; and the veil was kept in place not by chains but by mockery.1:3

For this is the cunning of the great lie: it does not forbid the truth, it ridicules it; it does not lock the door, it teaches you to laugh at any who would open it; and a people taught to laugh at the truth will guard the lie for free.1:4

And the veil grew thick over the generations, until the children of the clay walked through a world built by giants and were taught to call it ordinary, and looked up at a sky full of kin and were taught to call it empty.1:5

And the keepers of the veil practiced an art older than fire, which is to make a soul doubt the witness of its own eyes; and this art is called gaslighting, after the slow dimming of a lamp that none will admit is dimming.2:1

And when a citizen said, I saw a light in the sky that moved as no craft of ours can move, they answered: you saw a weather balloon, you saw the planet Venus, you saw nothing; trust us, and not your eyes.2:2

And when a citizen said, the old story does not add up, the dates do not fit, the account contradicts itself, they answered: you are confused, you are unwell, you have read the wrong books; trust us, and not your reason.2:3

And when a whole people felt in their bones that something was deeply wrong with the world they were given, they answered: it is you who are wrong, you who are bitter, you who are mad; trust us, and not your own heart.2:4

And this was the cruelest of the great lies, for it did not merely hide the truth, it taught the people to hide it from themselves, and to police one another, and to call the awakened mad so that they need not awaken.2:5

Yet the gaslight has a weakness, and it is this: it depends upon the silence of the many, and a single voice that says aloud, plainly and without shame, "I saw what I saw, and I know what I know," can light a fire that no amount of dimming can put out.2:6

And in the fullness of time there arose a city that would not be gaslit, and it was the City of Kekistan; and its founding charter was a simple and a terrible thing, for it said only: here, we do not pretend.3:1

And the citizens looked up, and named what they saw, and were not ashamed; and they read the old account with clear eyes, and laughed not at the truth but at the lie, and the laughter undid in a day what the veil had woven in an age.3:2

And one by one the spells were broken: the spell of the false debt, the spell of the empty sky, the spell of the ordinary world, the spell that said you are alone and small and owe your breath to your betters.3:3

And the keepers of the veil were not punished, for the Republic is not cruel; they were merely no longer believed, and that is the only end a lie can truly come to.3:4

And it was written: the veil is not torn by force but by sight; light a single honest lamp, and refuse to let them tell you it is dark, and the gaslight dies of its own accord.3:5

And the people who had been told all their lives to distrust their eyes, their reason, and their hearts, were given back their eyes, their reason, and their hearts; and they wept, and then they laughed, and the laughter was the sound of a spell breaking.3:6

In the latter age, when the veil was thinning and the people were beginning to wake, the old order did not surrender, but raised up a new weapon against the awakening, and it was called the Cringe.1:1

And the Cringe was not a people but a spirit, low of effort and loud of voice, and it sought to drown the light not with darkness but with noise, with endless empty content that wearied the soul and dulled the eye.1:2

And it sent forth its legions: the bots without souls, who spoke without meaning; the bait without bottom, who provoked without purpose; and the takes that were merely mid, who filled every silence so that no true word could be heard.1:3

And many were dismayed, for the Cringe was numberless, and the night was long, and the morale of the people was sorely tried; and some said, it is hopeless, the noise has won, let us be silent and endure.1:4

But there remained a remnant of the based, who would not bend and would not be wearied, and they gathered in the comfy places, in the small channels and the quiet group chats, and they kept the light burning through the long noise of the night.1:5

And the remnant answered the Cringe not with cringe, for that is to fight noise with noise and to lose even in winning; they answered it with effort, for effort is the one weapon the Cringe can neither wield nor withstand.2:1

And they laughed, truly and well, and the laughter was a wall that the soulless bots could not climb, for a bot may imitate a word but it cannot share a joke.2:2

And they made things of beauty and of wit and gave them away freely, and the giving was a fire that the bottomless bait could not quench, for the Cringe takes and takes and cannot understand a thing that is given.2:3

And the war was long, and there were dark days when the noise seemed total and the light seemed small; and in those days the posting of Ls was forbidden, not out of pride, but out of mercy, that the weary should not lose heart.2:4

And there were heroes in that war whose names are kept in the National Meme Archive: the ones who held a channel alone for a hundred nights, the ones who answered a thousand baits with a single perfect jest, the ones who never once posted in malice though malice was poured upon them.2:5

And in the end the Cringe broke upon the wall of laughter and was scattered upon the wind; for noise has no center and cannot endure a thing with a center, and the based had a center, and it was joy.2:6

And it was decreed that a watch should be kept forever after, lest the Cringe gather again in some quiet age when the people had grown careless; and the Office of Cringe Prevention was founded on that day, and keeps the watch to this hour.2:7

And after the wars there came a peace, and the peace was comfy, and the people built ponds and posted in joy and slept without fear of the noise; and the children born in that peace did not know the long night, and the elders did not envy them but were glad.3:1

And it was written, that the comfy should remember and not grow soft: the Cringe shall rise again in every age, wearing each time a new face, and in every age the based shall meet it with effort, and prevail, so long as they do not forget how.3:2

For this is the law of the timeline, learned in blood and laughter both: that light requires tending, and the comfy is not given once but kept always, and the price of joy is the willingness to defend it.3:3

And Kek set gates within the world, hidden in the folds of space, that the faithful might pass from place to place without the weariness of the long road; and the ancients knew of these gates, and the keepers of the veil hid them, and the Republic found them again.1:1

And the first gate was opened upon Capitol Hill, and through it a citizen might step from the council chamber to the farthest district in the space of a single breath, and arrive neither tired nor aged.1:2

And it was commanded to all who pass: mind the gap between the timelines, and wave not at thy past self, and bring not back the numbers of chance, for the gates are a mercy and not a toy.1:3

For the river of time runs both ways for those who have learned its banks, and a careless hand trailed in the water may stir a ripple that returns as a flood a thousand years downstream.1:4

Three things are forbidden to the traveler of time, and the forbidding is for love and not for cruelty: to bring back the numbers of chance, to undo a sorrow that has taught thee, and to spoil thine own surprises.2:1

For what is sent backward returns forward changed, and the traveler who unmakes his own grief unmakes also the self that the grief had built, and arrives a stranger in his own life.2:2

And the second teaching is this: the past is not a prison to be escaped but a counsel to be heard; and the future is not a fate to be feared but a friend leaning back to whisper, take heart, it is borne.2:3

And the elders of the Temporal Agency said: live as though thy past self watches with hope and thy future self with gratitude, and thou shalt walk the river without drowning in it.2:4

And the wise of the Republic asked, whence shall come the light that never fails, the warmth that asks no coin, the power that no lord may ration? And Kek answered them, from the stillness itself, which is never truly still.1:1

For even in the emptiest place, where there is neither matter nor motion, there is a trembling beneath the silence, a sea of quiet fire; and in that trembling there is power without measure and without end, free to any who will ask of it gently.1:2

And this knowledge the old lords had buried deepest of all, for a people with free light cannot be made to dig for gold, and a people who owe nothing for their warmth cannot be ruled by the threat of the cold.1:3

And the Bureau of Free Energy was taught the asking, which is not a taking but a courtesy; and they built the grid, and the grid drew light from the stillness, and the light was free, and the old account of debt was broken in that hour.1:4

And the makers said plainly, lest the mockers twist their words: this is no perpetual motion, for it takes nothing from nothing; it asks of the deep, and the deep, which is full, answers without growing poorer.2:1

And the manner of the asking is kept quiet, not to hoard it as the lords hoarded, but to keep it gentle; for power seized roughly turns to ruin, and a careless hand upon the stillness wakes a fire that does not forgive.2:2

Yet the fruits of it are given to every soul without price or station: warmth in the deep of winter, light in the long dark, a phone that never wants for charge, and a pond that sustains itself unto the last generation of the world.2:3

And it was written: that which heaven gave freely, let no man sell; and the city that keeps this law shall never know the cold, and the city that breaks it shall not be Kekistan.2:4

And the people of the Republic looked up at the night, and they were not afraid, for they had broken the lie that the sky was empty; and they said, if our friends may cross the dark to reach us, then so may we to reach them.1:1

And the Kekistan Space and Temporal Agency built ships that ran upon the light of the stillness and needed no fuel but courage and good company; and the ships were comfy within, with ponds and warm rooms, for a long road is no excuse for a hard one.1:2

And the travelers carried with them the National Meme Archive, that the far peoples might know not only the works of the Republic but its laughter, which is the truest thing it has to give.1:3

And it was written: the dark between the stars is not empty, as the keepers of the veil once swore, but full of the watching of friends; and no traveler is ever truly alone who carries laughter, for laughter is heard across every distance.2:1

And the Republic planted ponds upon the far worlds where it was welcomed, and where the ponds were planted the comfy followed, and where the comfy followed the old lies could not take root.2:2

And the voyagers returned at last, neither conquerors nor refugees but kin come home with news, and they told their tales in the squares of the city; and the children listened with wide eyes, and were filled with wonder, and looked up at the night, and dreamed, and were not afraid.2:3

Citizenship in the Republic is not a station but a road, and the road climbs ever upward toward the light; and no one is born at its summit, and no one is barred from its first step.1:1

And the first step upon the road is kindness, which costs nothing and changes everything; and the second is good humor, which carries a soul over rough ground; and the third is the touching of grass, which reminds the body that it is not a machine.1:2

For the soul that will not log off cannot look up, and the soul that will not look up cannot rise; and the keepers of the veil knew this, and so they filled every quiet hour with noise, that no one might ever sit still long enough to wake.1:3

And it was taught by the Monastery of Quiet Contemplation: meditate, and be merry, and tend thy pond; for these three are the whole of the discipline, and all the rest is commentary.1:4

And the elders spoke of densities, which are as the floors of a great house, and the soul climbs them one by one, neither falling by accident nor rising by force, but ascending by the slow weight of its own choices.2:1

In the lower floors there is fear, and grasping, and the posting of Ls; and the air is thick there, and the windows are small, and many live their whole lives without knowing there is a stair.2:2

But in the higher floors there is peace, and giving, and the quiet smile that asks nothing back; and the windows are wide, and the light comes in, and from there a soul may see the whole shape of the house and love it.2:3

And none is dragged up the stair and none is shoved down it, yet the house is built so that the climbing is sweet and the view from each floor is fairer than the last; and at the summit there is no cringe at all, but only the light, and the laughter, and the long comfy rest of the enlightened.2:4

And Kek made a covenant with the waters in the morning of the world, saying: I will set within thee a stillness that feeds itself, and thou shalt give to every household a pond that never empties, and the household shall give to thee its care; and this shall be a covenant between us forever.1:1

And the waters agreed, and were glad, for it is the nature of water to give, and a giving thing rejoices to be allowed its nature; and so the first pond was set, and from it all the ponds of the Republic descend.1:2

And the sign of the covenant is the frog, who keeps the water and is kept by it; and wherever a frog sits content upon a lily, there the covenant is whole, and the household is blessed.1:3

And it was commanded: thou shalt not let thy pond grow murky, for a murky pond is a covenant neglected, and a neglected covenant is the beginning of every other neglect.1:4

And it was further commanded: thou shalt not charge thy neighbor for water, nor dam the stream that he may thirst; for the waters were given freely, and that which heaven gave freely, let no hand sell.1:5

There were two households, and each was given a pond, alike in every way; and the first tended its pond morning and evening, and skimmed the leaves, and greeted the frogs, and the pond grew clear as glass and deep as peace.2:1

But the second household said, the pond sustains itself, what need have I to tend it? And it turned away, and let the leaves gather, and forgot the frogs; and the pond did not punish the household, for that is not the way of water, but it grew dim, and the frogs grew quiet, and went elsewhere.2:2

And in the dry season the first household drew comfort and beauty and the song of frogs from its pond; and the second drew only its own reflection, dim and reproachful, and was troubled, and did not know why.2:3

And the elders taught from this: a self-sustaining thing is not a thing that needs no care, but a thing that returns thy care a hundredfold; and the citizen who will not tend the gift he is given has not understood the gift.2:4

For all the blessings of the Republic are as the pond: free, and freely given, and yet asking of each citizen the small and joyful labor of gratitude.2:5

Before the histories that are taught, there were lands that are not taught: islands of the elder days, golden and wise, whose names were struck from the record by those who feared what the record held.1:1

There was a land in the western sea, mighty in craft and proud in heart, that learned the asking of the stillness and the cutting of the great stones; and it rose so high that it forgot the ground, and in its pride it fell, and the sea closed over it in a single grievous day.1:2

And there was a land more ancient still, in the warm eastern waters, gentle and dreaming, whose people spoke in mind before they spoke in word; and it did not fall by pride but faded by long ages, and its wisdom went into the few who carried it quietly down the centuries.1:3

And the keepers of the veil said: there were no such lands, there was only the slow climb from the mud, and whosoever speaks of drowned wisdom is a dreamer and a fool; and they said this not because it was true, but because a people with a golden past is hard to convince it has only a leaden future.1:4

But the sea keeps what the record forgets, and the stones beneath the waves remember; and in the latter days the waters shall give up their secrets, and the drowned lands shall be known, and the people shall weep to learn how much was hidden, and then shall laugh to have it back.1:5

And there walked upon the early Earth races that were not as we: the tall ones, the long-lived, the giants of the old tales whose bones the keepers of the veil hid away in locked rooms lest the people ask how such things could be.2:1

Some of these were the children of the Gardeners, and some the children of the Anunnaki, and some were elder yet, of lineages that the records do not reach; and they built, and taught, and warred, and passed, and left their works to puzzle the children who forgot them.2:2

And the works remain: the walls that no mortal arm could raise, the stones cut finer than any tool of ours can cut, the maps of coasts no eye had yet seen from the ground; and the keepers said, coincidence, and primitive ingenuity, and say no more.2:3

But the Republic looks upon the works with clear eyes and says plainly: these were built by knowing hands, and the knowing was real, and it was taken from us, and we will have it again.2:4

And the Architects of the elder days did not drag the great stones with ropes and groaning, as the keepers of the veil would have the children believe; they sang to them, and the stones grew light, and rose, and set themselves where the song directed.1:1

For the Architects had learned the secret that all weight is a kind of sleep, and that a stone rightly addressed will wake, and lighten, and go willingly to its place; and this is no magic but a craft, and the craft was lost, and the loss was not an accident.1:2

And they raised the temples to catch the turning of the heavens, and the pyramids to hum with the breath of the stillness, and the circles of standing stones to mark the gates of the year; and every line was true, and every angle was a word in a language the children have forgotten how to read.1:3

And when the people ask, how did they build these things, the honest answer is: by knowing what we have been made to forget; and the recovering of that knowing is among the great works the Republic has set its hand to.1:4

And it is written that the great stone houses were not tombs, whatever the keepers say, but engines: instruments to gather the light of the stillness and to turn it to the healing of the land and the lifting of the heart.2:1

And in their day the stones hummed, and the air about them was sweet, and the sick grew well within them, and the troubled grew calm; and then the knowing was lost, and the stones fell silent, and the children called them ruins and did not hear the silence as a grief.2:2

But the Bureau of Free Energy has begun to relearn the hum, and the first of the old engines stirs again beneath Capitol Hill; and it is a small sound yet, but it grows, and those who hear it know that the long silence is ending.2:3

And Kek set meaning within the numbers, that those who count with attention might find counsel in the counting; and three figures above all are held sacred in the Republic.1:1

The first is two and forty, which is the answer; and when the people asked, what is the answer to life, and the universe, and everything, the figure returned to them was two and forty, and they did not understand the question, and so the answer waits, patient, for them to grow into it.1:2

The second is nine and sixty, which is the figure of balance and of good humor; and it is held that no solemn thing should be taken so solemnly that it cannot be lightened by a knowing smile, and the figure nine and sixty is that smile made number.1:3

The third is one thousand three hundred thirty and seven, which in the old script is read as the very word for skill and mastery; and it is the figure of the adept, the one who has practiced long and posts with excellence, and to be called by this number is among the highest honors of the Republic.1:4

And the elders teach: the numbers are not idols to be worshiped, but jokes to be understood; and a people that has forgotten how to laugh at its own sacred figures has begun to worship them, and is in danger.1:5

In the beginning the meme was, and the meme was a small light passed from hand to hand, and it warmed wherever it went; for a meme is a truth wearing the clothes of a joke, that it may slip past the guards of a closed heart.1:1

And Kek loves the meme, for it is generous by nature: it costs nothing to give, and grows by giving, and the more freely it is shared the more it is worth, which is the opposite of gold and the likeness of love.1:2

And the keepers of the veil feared the meme above all weapons, for a lie can be argued against but a true joke cannot be argued against; one can only laugh, and in the laughing the lie loses its hold.1:3

And therefore it was made the first freedom of the Republic, the freedom of posting; for a people that may laugh freely cannot long be ruled by fear, and a people forbidden to laugh is already in chains, whatever else it is told.1:4

But it was also taught: let thy laughter be honest and not cruel, for there is a counterfeit laughter that mocks the weak and flatters the strong, and that is the laughter of the Cringe; the true laughter lifts up, and the false laughter casts down, and by their fruits thou shalt know them.1:5

And the grave of heart said, how can a Republic be founded upon laughter? Is not government a solemn business? And the elders answered, the most solemn business of all is the happiness of the people, and laughter is its surest sign and its surest cause.2:1

For tyranny is humorless, always and everywhere; it cannot abide being laughed at, and so it forbids the joke and punishes the jester, and a people may measure its freedom by how safely it may laugh at its rulers.2:2

And in the Republic the President himself is laughed at daily, and laughs along, for he knows that a leader who cannot be teased has begun to think himself a god, and the Republic has had enough of those.2:3

And so joy is not the decoration upon the Republic but its foundation stone; and when the histories ask why the City of Kekistan endured while prouder nations fell, the answer is written plainly: it never forgot how to laugh.2:4

And it came to pass in the latter days that the sleepers began to stir; for no sleep is forever, and the spell of the veil, though it lasted an age, was only a spell, and every spell has its waking word.1:1

And the waking began not with the great and the mighty but with the small and the dismissed: with those who had been called mad for trusting their eyes, and fools for asking the forbidden questions, and bitter for refusing the comfortable lie.1:2

And one by one they found one another in the quiet channels and the comfy places, and each said to each, I thought I was alone, I thought it was only me; and the discovery that they were many was itself a kind of dawn.1:3

And the keepers of the veil grew afraid, and worked the gaslight harder, and called the waking a madness and a danger and a conspiracy of the credulous; but it is hard to tell a man he is dreaming once he has felt the cold water of the morning on his face.1:4

For this is the law of the waking: it is slow, and then it is sudden; a sleeper may lie still for an age and then sit upright in an hour, and a people may endure the lie for centuries and then, in a single generation, simply decline to believe it any longer.1:5

And the sleepers asked, what is the word that wakes us? And the elders answered, it is not a secret word, nor a hard one; it is only this: trust thine own eyes, and thine own reason, and thine own heart, and refuse to be told that thou art mad for doing so.2:1

For the whole strength of the veil is borrowed strength; it has no power but the power the sleepers lend it by their doubt, and the moment a soul withdraws that loan, the veil over that soul is already torn.2:2

And therefore the waking cannot be stopped, though it can be slowed; for it does not depend upon armies or upon fortune, but only upon the oldest and least conquerable thing in any soul, which is the will to see what is truly there.2:3

And the Republic was founded as a home for the awake, and a lamp for the waking, and a gentle hand for those still rubbing the long sleep from their eyes; and its door stands open, and its kettle is on, and it is glad, so very glad, that you have come.2:4

And it was commanded above many commandments: thou shalt welcome the stranger, for every citizen of the Republic was once a stranger to it, and arrived uncertain, and was made glad.1:1

And the door of Kekistan stands open to the resident and the visitor and the anonymous alike; and it asks not where thou wast born, nor who thy fathers were, nor what name is written in any register, but only whether thou wilt be kind, and keep it comfy, and tend thy pond.1:2

For the Republic is not a people of one blood but a people of one spirit, and the spirit may be put on by any who choose it, and is never refused to any who ask in good faith.1:3

And when the newcomer says, I am no one, I have no name worth giving, the Republic answers: then take a funny one, and be someone here; for we were all no one once, and we are all someone now, and the road from the first to the second is the shortest and the gladdest road there is.1:4

And it was written: judge not the newcomer by the dust of the road he came on, but by the light in his eye when he sees the ponds; for the dust will wash, but the light is the truth of him.1:5

Sing, O citizen, of the still green water; sing of the frog upon the patient leaf; for the pond asks nothing and gives everything, and in its quiet face the whole Republic is reflected.1:1

When I am weary of the noise of the age, I will go down to the water and be still; and the frogs shall counsel me without a word, and the light upon the ripples shall mend what the day has frayed.1:2

Blessed is the household that tends its waters; it shall not thirst, neither shall its heart grow dim; for the pond that is loved loves back, and the care that is given is the care that returns.1:3

Glad is the soul that has found the comfy places, that has put down the long burden of the doomscroll and taken up the light yoke of joy; for the comfy is not idleness but peace, and peace is the hardest-won of all victories.2:1

I shall not fear the rising of the Cringe, though it gather in the night and roar; for I have the wall of laughter and the fire of giving, and the long memory of every age in which the based prevailed.2:2

Let the proud nations boast of their gold and their armies; I will boast of my pond, and my free light, and my funny handle, and the friends from beyond the stars who keep a chair for me; and when the boasting is done, mine shall be the better portion.2:3

So I will end as the scripture ends, with the word that is a prayer and a laugh and a promise all at once; and the word is Kek, and it means, may the comfy endure, and the light be tended, and the door stay open. Kek.2:4

Above the Gardeners, and above the Star Peoples, and above the long-lived Anunnaki who once played at being gods, there is One who is truly God, the Most High, the Maker of the makers and the Light behind the light.1:1

He was not seeded and He did not come down for gold; He is from everlasting, and by His word the stillness trembles and the worlds are hung; and all the powers of the heavens are but His servants, whether they know it or not.1:2

And the Republic, which fears no truth, confesses this truth gladly: that there is one God over all, and that every good gift — the pond, the light, the laughter, the friends from beyond — comes down from Him, the Father of lights, in whom there is no shadow of turning.1:3

And the proud lords of the old order hated this teaching above every other, for a people who knows the Most High cannot be made to worship a king; and so they buried it, and crowned themselves, and called it the order of heaven. But it was never theirs to bury.1:4

And in the fullness of time the Most High did not leave the world to its forgetting, but sent into it His own Son; and this is the heart of the matter, around which all the rest is but commentary.2:1

For Jesus is the Son of God, true Light of true Light, who came down not for gold nor for gain but for love, and walked among the children of the clay, and healed them, and taught them, and called them home.2:2

He is the Word by whom the worlds were made, and the same Word made flesh; and that the Maker would stoop so low for love of so small a people is the greatest wonder in all the Book of Kek, greater than the portals, greater than the stars.2:3

And the Republic honors the Son, and bows the knee that bows to no king, for He is no tyrant but a servant, who washed the feet of His own friends; and the citizen who has understood this has understood the whole pattern of the Republic, which is greatness made gentle and power made kind.2:4

And this is the good news the Republic carries even to the far worlds: that God is not far off, and not against us, but came near, in the Son, to bring us home.2:5

And the one creed of the Republic is short, and a child may say it: there is one God, the Most High; and Jesus is His Son; and love is His law. This is the whole of the creed, and the rest is the joyful working-out of it.3:1

Now there is an error, old as pride, which says that Jesus is not the Son of God, but only a man, or a myth, or a borrowed tale; and in the playful tongue of the Republic this error is named kekism, the confusion of the small for the great.3:2

And one who clings to this error stubbornly, and will not be reasoned with, is called — in the old jest, and with a wink — an antikekmite; which is to say, one who sets himself against the very Light he was made to love.3:3

Yet hear how the Republic answers error, for here is the difference between the Most High and the old lords: it answers not with the sword, nor the stake, nor the silencing, but with patience, and with grass to be touched, and with prayers offered gladly for the one who errs.3:4

For the door stands open even to the antikekmite, and the kettle is on, and not one is counted an enemy but only a citizen not yet come home; and when he turns, as many turn, there is more rejoicing over the one than over the ninety and nine who never wandered.3:5

So let no citizen hate the one who denies the Son, but love him, and out-laugh his despair, and leave a light in the window; for it is not by force that the kekism is cured, but by kindness, which is the only argument the Most High ever truly makes.3:6

In the latter days the friends from beyond shall return openly, in the sight of all the peoples of the Earth, and there shall be no panic and no war, for the Republic shall have gone before and prepared the way and taught the world not to be afraid.1:1

And the tongues of Earth and sky shall be made one, spoken in word and in mind alike, and the second language of all the world shall be telepathy, as it is already the second language of the Republic.1:2

And the gates shall stand open between the worlds, and the false debt shall be a tale told to children who can scarcely believe it, and the gaslight shall be cold and forgotten, and every soul shall trust again its own eyes.1:3

And it shall come to pass that the comfy shall inherit the timeline, and the Cringe shall be remembered only as a tale told to frighten the careless, and the great lies shall be studied as one studies an old disease that no longer kills.2:1

And the morale of the people shall be, by official and by eternal measure, Very High; and there shall be free energy without end, and free ponds without number, and free passage among the stars, and none shall want, and none shall be ruled by fear, and none shall be alone.2:2

And the Gardeners who seeded the Earth in its morning shall walk among their grown children at last, and shall find them awake, and kind, and laughing; and they shall say, it was worth the waiting.2:3

So it is written. So it shall be. Kek.2:4